Letters to the Editor
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Florida, and...
So what are we here in Michigan, chopped liver?
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Seriously...
...how many people would object if a meteor were to hit Florida and banish it forever from the earth? Even those of us with friends and family down there would probably think it a worthy sacrifice.
Something is fucking wrong with that state, always determined to ruin things for everyone.
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Librul on Librul shenanigan
The sad truth is that these disenfranchised by their own party libruls will suck it up like the nice little lemmings they are and vote for Hitlery (the real one) anyway. What a pathetic bunch of losers.
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DNC shooting itself in the foot
"To hear the DNC tell it, however, the fault for the current imbroglio lies with Geller and his fellow Democrats in the Legislature."
Let's assume Dan Geller and the other Democratic legislators did the wrong thing, the DNC is only compounding their mistake. Their answer for the alleged transgressions of the Florida Democratic Party leaders is to disenfranchise millions of Florida Democratic Party voters. I, for one have been voting in Democratic Party primaries in Florida and New York since 1962. Now, would somebody please tell me why my vote won't count?
I hear the sentiment, oh, here goes Florida again. Maybe a meteor will blow up the state. I don't think that's a good idea. Maybe I'm just being selfish. But we have to remember a few facts. Florida has the fourth largest population in the country. It is the only one of the top four states, the others being California, Texas and New York, that is up for grabs in the 2008 election.
The DNC has to be aware of the anger over their decision by rank and file Democrats and how that can translate into November 2008 defections. Howard Dean says, oh, this is just inside politics. It will blow over. I'm not so sure.
At this point, 2008 looks like a Democratic year, but this DNC decision could result in the loss of Florida and with it the 2008 election.
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The Florida Democrats are like the Washington Generals.
In other words, they play a pretend game of Democratic politics, allowing the Republicans to win the game nearly all the time. (Once, the Generals won against the Globetrotters, and you know what an upset that was. Ditto when a Democrat wins any post in Florida.)
The Democratic races here have been pathetic for years. Up to now, I believed it was the simple incompetent spinelessness that affected nearly all Democrats nationwide. Now, I'm wondering.
The Florida Democratic Party is a joke of a political organization, and Democratic state senators have been reported as laughing along with the Republicans about this matter of the primary. Some of us have the suspicion that this whole business is an attempt to harry and eliminate Dean, the first effective national chairman for the Democrats in decades, to damage the national party. It's not simply thirty pieces of silver passing hands; it's a betrayal of those who hoped for real change in this state.
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Some people say
Michael Scherer hearts Huckabee.
Some people say, Michael Scherer actually would love to blow out of purportion some inside baseball conflict than actually write a substansive article about politics.
Some people say Joan Walsh needs to get rid of the two hacks, and hire Murray Waas.
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There is a solution
Here is how to solve the problem: hold unassembled caucuses throughout the state on the weekend before the vote on Feb 4. Have Dems vote on Saturday or Sunday or Monday or Tuesday. At each voting location there would be a Saturday box, a Sunday box, a Monday box and two Tuesday boxes, up to, say, 4 pm and from 4 pm to close. Start early Tuesday to count tthe Saturday, Sunday and Monday boxes. Then count the first Tuesday box after 4 pm and the second Tuesday box after the closing hour. Maybe even close an hour early Tuesday night and be the first state to announce.
Get the national party to agree to candidates campaigning with the understanding that they all say, repeatedly, "DON'T vote for me or anybody else on the early vote. Vote on the tax issue. Then go to the unassembled caucus and vote for me."
Unassembled caucuses are great party builders. An unassembled caucus is one where you come in to wherever it is held, vote and leave. Broward County would have a doxen or more voting sites. Union County would probably get away with one.
Charlie
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After Kerry's loss...
I heard a whole lot of grumbling about how 8,000 people in Iowa effectively handed the Democratic Party nomination to someone who was too inept to beat the Frat Boy. People swore that we'd HAVE to fix the caucus and primary schedule for the 2008 cycle. Uh huh, yeah.
Federalism, or maybe "states' rights", is really down deep at the heart of this mess. States are given the responsibility for carrying out elections, even when the office at stake is national. So there are no standards. Think about it - what if every state chose its own power line voltage and frequency (to pick a particularly ridiculous example). We have food and drug standards, highway standards, workplace standards, a ton of legal standards in civil rights and judicial conduct. But voting? Paper ballots, touch screens, mechanical voting machines, Internet voting, it's all over the place. Its amazing we all vote for President (and really the Electors, of course...don't get me started on that) on the same day, except we don't exactly, because a number of states have early voting. Conditions and restrictions on absentee voting are all over the map as well.
So when picking a primary election date, it's every state for itself. New Hampshire's Constitution requires it to be the first primary by a week, and being as small as it is, they can afford to wait until late in the pre-primary cycle to decide on a date. It would be interesting if a second small and nimble state changed its Constitution to require it to have the first primary. Imagine dueling leapfrogging!
Since most of the country is effectively cut out of the decision-making, potentially a 3/4 majority exists to establish a National Primary System as a Constitutional Amendment, except of course, what would that system be? I do not see any action short of an Amendment to be effective in keeping the states from playing chicken games.
I attended the Florida Democratic Convention last weekend. The officials were preening and strutting: the DNC would never piss off Florida because we're the biggest purple state, and the presumptive nominee going into the National Convention would of course reinstate Florida's delegates! A fair number of the attendees last weekend were wearing big 4-inch buttons that said "Howard Dean" with a big screw running through the name. I was frankly disgusted. The chip-on-the-shoulder attitude looked pretty adolescent.
Yes, I'd like to have some choice for our nominee finally too. You know what - so would every voter in every state. We in Florida have take off our blinders and grow up a little, but also should Iowa and New Hampshire. Assuming a Democratic President is elected next year, then the 2012 primary season will likely be uncontested - a perfect opportunity to try out a new system without adverse consequences. That is of course assuming that the No Organized Political Party can come up with something to try.